


codename: snakecharmer

by girlsarewolves



Series: fic exchanges [3]
Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Assassins & Hitmen, Bad People Want Love Too, Chocolate Box Exchange, Chocolate Box Exchange 2019, Coming to Terms with Past Rape, Coping, Drinking, Drinking to Cope, F/M, Fic Exchange, Gen, Identity Issues, Minor Original Character(s), Murder, Non-Graphic Violence, Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, References to Canonical Character Death, References to Canonical Sexual Abuse, Reincarnation, Unrepentant Killers Looking for Happiness, dry-heaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-19 04:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17594729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: Meela Nais is one of the top assassins in the world - standing out enough to garner the attention of a veteran hitman, one who seems to know an uncomfortable lot about her and who she used to be.(A modern assassin AU. TMR never happened.)





	codename: snakecharmer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WildandWhirling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildandWhirling/gifts).



> To my reader, I hope that you enjoy this fic! When I saw you requested Imhotep/Anck-su-namun and mentioned canon divergent and reincarnation au fic, my imagination kind of went wild and this wound up a mammoth without me having any idea what to do except keep writing. I love this pairing and wanted to really dig in and write something different, and hopefully that turned into a fic that you will be happy to receive! I had also recently rewatched The Mummy Returns and got a lot of Lock-Nah thoughts and feelings, and his dynamic with Meela, and wound up incorporating that into this AU, as well as a lot of feelings about Meela and Meela and Anck-su-namun being different people/souls? And how I thought there was a lot of interesting but ultimately wasted potential just barely hinted at. So there's a lot of Meela and Anck-su-namun emphasis, but I tried to keep it from straying too far from being shippy. I also wrote you a short back-up fic as well, when I was worried I'd get stuck on this and not be able to finish, so I hope that you enjoy both stories! :)
> 
> Warnings: references to canon sexual abuse and character deaths, references to violence/murder, panic attacks, dealing/coping with having gone through rape, major identity crisis issues, character starting to drink to cope.
> 
> Translation: 'Wadaeaan', according to all the translators I could find for free, is goodbye in Arabic. If I used it incorrectly though, let me know!

* * *

Meela Nais was good at death. It was something she was particularly familiar with - intimately so, even. It came easy and without the pesky, uncomfortable feelings of shock or regret. There was never guilt, never a fear of losing some innocent part of herself. Hard to lose what had been taken before she was born. She was not picky, either, with how to deliver it. Poison was her specialty - she had a fondness for milking venom from snakes  - but blades, blunt objects, guns, even her own body, all tools she had used at some point or another. Whatever worked best for the job. 

 

An orphan from age sixteen, she had used a wisdom well beyond her years to navigate life on the streets of Cairo. Stealing and killing to survive, she had found that despite all her memories of training to be a warrior, a skilled fighter for show and display, this newer, teenage body was still soft. It had taken some time to harden it into something more useful than a pretty lure for heavy pockets with hungry eyes, but Meela was ruthless, determined. She would not be street trash or a desperate prostitute - or worse. She would not be grabbed and threatened and forced to be both for someone else, or taken and used and slaughtered and tossed out like trash. 

 

She'd had an entire lifetime of being someone else's property. That was a thing of the past.

 

 _Ancient history_.

 

Most of her early victims had been tourists, other thieves, a few locals - no one too high profile, nobody with companions. The kind of people that could slip between the cracks, not be so easily noticed missing or incurring heavy heat if they were. At that time she had been forced to stick with small blades, makeshift knives, occasionally adding her small body into the mix, but she hadn't minded. There was something thrilling about being in close when it happened, seeing the life fade from their eyes, their skin turning pale as those final, shuddering gasps escaped them. It was intoxicating - the power of those moments, the control. She had so little of that - Meela, Anck-su-namun - and those moments were the ultimate power trip.

 

They also reminded her of the few brief seconds of freedom Anck-su-namun had known.

 

Somewhere around eighteen or nineteen she'd started taking more risks, going after better prey - and that had started getting more attention. The local authorities had not yet realized they had an opportunistic serial killer on their hands, at least. She had worked hard to differentiate her kills and make most of them seem like simple muggings gone wrong. Many of them were muggings after all, but they'd gone exactly how she had wanted. She stole to survive - she killed because she liked it.

 

While the police had yet to connect all of her victims though, someone else had. 

 

* * *

 

"You're good."

 

Those were the first words Lock-Nah ever said to her. His deep voice startling her from behind as she'd uncurled her legs from her now dead target's neck - and when she'd scrambled up, hand pulling out the small knife she'd hidden in her boot, he had been as physically intimidating as he sounded. Several inches over her despite how tall she had sprouted, his body was broad enough that his height did not even stand out. Smooth, dark skin covered powerful muscles that the loose, sleeveless tunic did little to hid. He was handsome, but there was a wickedness in his eyes that Meela felt an instant kinship to even as it sent a shiver of dread up her spine.

 

"But sloppy. And getting sloppier, even if you've honed your skillset so far."

 

He spoke to her in Arabic, but his melodic accent made the Egyptian dialect sound almost strange, nearly foreign. He was not local, nor was he police - true, he could have been undercover, but it wasn't the lack of uniform that convinced her of that. It was the indifference to the corpse now lying between them, the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He stepped further into the shadowed alley, his large frame easily blocking Meela and her victim from any prying eyes that might come down around the corner of the building she had lured the dead man behind. Every move he made was graceful, and Anck-su-namun recognized the practiced, calculated body language of a seasoned killer.

 

Fear had coiled inside her belly like a tangle of asps, her blood seeming to run cold as though their venom was petrifying her to that spot. She remembered this fear - another body at her feet, a dozen vengeful swords banging against her doors - but Meela was still barely more than a child, and defiance was further from her than it had been for Anck-su-namun. There was no steely resolve to face her fate, no words of self-reclamation on her tongue. And had there been, she was certain they would have gotten caught up in the tight, constricting panic that had formed a lump in her throat.

 

"Come now, child, where is that cold-blooded killer I have been tracking?" The man had questioned her, moving now to stalk around her. Everything about him was cat-like - the way he moved, the way he circled her like quarry, the hungry gleam in his eyes - and Anck-su-namun knew he would have been a worthy adversary, had she met him in her first life. But Lock-Nah had found Meela Nais instead - street orphan, thief and killer of opportunity, not the hardened warrior forced to be little more than a harem slave. "Or perhaps I was mistaken, and you are merely a particularly vicious street rat, able only to take down fat cats too old and lethargic to pose any more threat." 

 

There was a taunting bite to his words, a sneer there that had finally coaxed some fire back into her veins, scaring the snakes away from her insides, and she'd gripped the knife tightly, baring teeth.

 

"Come near me and find out," she'd spat back, slowly turning her body so that her back was never exposed to him, lowering down in a protective stance, ready to bolt or pounce.

 

The man she would eventually come to consider a mentor and friend had laughed at that, a sound that was at once both approving and condescending. "There she is. Yes, you show promise, Child. Right now, though, your skills are still crude - raw talent will only take you so far. I can help you perfect them into an art form. If, that is, you are interested." He had stopped then, closer to her now, the corpse no longer between them. 

 

Something about the offer sounded too good to be true - and she was convinced he was looking to leash her - but even so, she could not help craving what it was he was dangling in front of her. And despite the glimpses of cruelty in his eyes, she had been forced to admit to herself that unlike so many others, there had never been a hint of anything carnal in his gaze when he looked at her. Another consideration to remember was that though with age came experience, it had been easier to disappear when she was a child. Even Anck-su-namun, in a time that had been less crowded and less easy to trace someone's steps, had slipped up and gotten caught too young.

 

And though Meela and Anck-su-namun both had plenty of reasons to distrust men, there was a hunger in her that this man had promised to feed.

 

"Teach me."

 

* * *

 

It was nearly two years before Meela had killed again after accepting the stranger's offer.

 

He had taken her back to his sinfully lavish apartment with a view of the city that she had never been privy to - all those years navigating the streets and alleys and dark corners, a few seedy places low to the ground, Anck-su-namun had found modern Cairo revolting and loud with unnatural sounds, but from above, where she could appreciate the traces of her past and truly see the architecture of this new world, it was almost beautiful. The apartment itself was modern and clean, with a few designs and furnishings that hinted at Egypt's current culture as well as it's long and influentual history, and in her stolen clothes worn thin from wear and tear, soaked with her own sweat and all the cloying scents she'd used to make up for washings, Meela felt dirty and small and out of place.

 

"Do you have a name?" she had asked, uncomfortable in these new surroundings - and that discomfort brought with it the nagging fear that she had misjudged the stranger, that he was looking for either pet or prey or both.

 

The stranger was watching her, arms folded and a hard, studying look in his eyes, taking in every move she made. He had smirked then, one eyebrow quirking upwards, and replied, "Do you?"

 

"Yours first. You sought me out, you have me in your apartment, and you know more about me than anyone else. You witnessed me murder a man, helped me dispose of the body and evidence. You have the advantage. Give me something." She spoke with more authority than she had been able to muster up before then, more authority than a nineteen year old street thief who liked to kill had ever had, at least in this lifetime. But once upon a time, she had been a powerless woman of authority and stature, whose every whim was to be met - so long as it would not go against a higher authority.

 

Her _whims_ rarely had. The things she truly wanted, the desires that she felt in her bones, those all would have, had she dared to speak them aloud to anyone other than herself or her secret lover.

 

The man chuckled and moved into the kitchen - the first time he had let his back be exposed. "Clever girl. You can call me Lock-Nah. Now, shall I keep calling you girl and child, or do you have a name as well?"

 

Meela made a crude gesture while his back was still to her, one she had learned during her time on the streets, and followed after him. She refused to let him out of her sight, especially going into a room that even in the home of the tamest and most passive of people still held too many items that could inflict serious pain and damage to a person. "Meela. You can call me Meela," she said, mocking his accent and the way he had given her his own name. She dropped to her hands and knees only seconds later to avoid a small kitchen knife flying towards her, scrambling to hide behind a counter that separated kitchen from living area.

 

"It would not have killed you. Excellent reflexes, that is good," Lock-nah stated. There was an edge to his voice then that made his accent even more noticeable. "But mock my heritage again, Meela, and I will skin you."

 

The nineteen year old street kid wanted to snap back, but Anck-su-namun reigned in her pride. "Understood."

 

"Good. Then come out from hiding, and I will fix dinner. After that, then we talk. If you still accept my offer, then we begin. Oh, and Meela? Fetch the knife."

 

That was how it had started. She ate her first home-cooked meal in ages - Moroccan dish, one of Lock-Nah's favorites that he had taught himself to cook until he had mastered it so he could enjoy it when away from his penthouse there - was allowed a shower - the most luxurious thing she had ever experienced in any life, she was sure of it - and then they talked. That was how she learned you could be paid to do what you love, even if what you loved was killing. "Being an assassin is not the same as being a serial killer for income," Lock-Nah had firmly instilled in her starting that night, but Meela hadn't cared.

 

As long as she could kill men, turn the lust in their eyes to fear, turn that fear into nothing, an empty void where mind and soul was no more, and live the life she had always wanted, this was her calling. This was what she craved.

 

"Excellent. In two days you will regret your decision, and you will hate me," he had told her, voice matter-of-fact and that cruel gleam in his eyes again. But as much as he was confident in that truth, it was also a challenge - he knew from the start that she was a proud, defiant woman. The challenge was there - you will hate me and hate this choice, but if you give it up, you are weak. Give it up, and you will never have the life you want. That night, of course, she was certain he was underestimating her - how could he possibly know the pain she had endured, the indignities and the subjugation and the humiliations, he had no idea what she could fight through - but over the years Anck-su-namun had come to understand that while Lock-Nah might not know all she had been through or even believe in the possibility of past lives, he had never underestimated her.

 

He was the one man who loved her without ever wanting her. For that, he would always matter, no many how many lives she might live until Anubis found her, forced her hard and heavy heart onto his scales.

 

He had also been right - within two days, he had pushed her body to its limits and beyond, teaching Meela things Anck-su-namun was certain she had never learned, not even in memories lost to the millennia between lifetimes. He was a cold and unforgiving teacher, but she relished it even as she hated him for it and spat it back in his face while refusing to give it up. He took her still too soft body and molded it into something even more deadly than Anck-su-namun had been - more deadly than she had been allowed to be - while also putting her mind to work. He started with new languages. First came English, a confusing and contradictory language that she had picked up a few basic things from and so there was already a foundation to begin with, but within six months she was also learning Spanish, and there were threats of tossing another one in there once he made up his mind which would be best.

 

More importantly, she learned how to live out there in the world, to not just be a successful killer but a successful adult.

 

But his insistence on her not killing again until he was certain she was ready to kill like a professional, while pushing her body and mind to the brink of it seeming like a punishment, made it very tempting to try to kill him in his sleep six nights of the week.

 

* * *

 

In her dreams, she always spoke in another tongue, one that Meela has rarely ever uttered but has always understood. Not merely ancient, but a dead language - but then so was the culture that she always lived out in her sleep. Memories from another time, so much more real than the few that sprang to mind while she was awake, and yet more distorted when they came to her during her dreams and nightmares. None of those moments belonged to Meela - no, those belonged solely to Anck-su-namun.

 

She was almost ten when they first started. Her first recollection of her previous self was nightmares - a neverending darkness, something chasing after her, and she knew if it caught her it would consume her, keep her from ever being reborn. Then came her death - her second death, she would later remember - shaking in agony upon a table, men all around her and watching as she writhed within her incomplete body, only for it to reject her and send her back into that darkness where there was only judgment and oblivion hunting her down.

 

Her parents had fretted nervously as she continued to wake night after night screaming in a language they didn't know, as she told them of the awful things she continued to dream. Of a knife piercing skin and muscle and going deep into her belly by her own hand, of lavish quarters where a man who was never quite in focus waited for her. Of pain in places that she had yet to discover in this new life, of this aching feeling that her body was not her own. She remembered fighting before a watchful court, every move like an intricate dance - and then she began to remember the long, hard hours of training it took to master the fluidity of her attacks, the precision and mastery over the styles and weapons used. More and more blanks were filled, and more and more her parents thought that perhaps something was wrong with her mind, or perhaps she had committed some sin and so she was afflicted with these dreams, this disease that had convinced her she had been someone else before she was Meela.

 

After they had died, a car accident that left her without any current blood ties, and she had disappeared into the streets of Cairo, the dreams slowed. Bits and pieces of Anck-su-namun began to filter in, more blank spaces filled - but always there were places, times, people, who remained blurry, out of focus. 

 

When Lock-Nah took her in, for the first year, the dreams stopped. She thought perhaps enough of her had been filled up with that past life that now it was Meela's turn - perhaps with her current life mirroring the previous one, there was no need to remember more. She had enough to know what she had endured, what she had avoided in this new life. She could appreciate what she had, and still hunger for more, always more. Anck-su-namun wanted this life to be better, to be everything the first should have been but was denied because a man her people had deluded themselves into thinking was a god living among them decided he was owed her body as though it existed solely to be his temple. In this life, despite everything, her body was her own.

 

They could have all the things they wanted.

 

Except the one person that she had never seen clearly in her memories.

 

* * *

 

"Be careful not to use the snake venom too often, Meela. You know that creates a pattern."

 

The thirty-one year old smirked as she took a sip of her wine, body shifting to give a small shrug of her shoulders. "I only use it when it works best for the target. Or when the client requests such methods." She took in the sight of Dubai bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun, lighting up the city in one final, glorious blaze before it disappeared for the night to be replaced by the artificial haze of modern city lights. She missed the flickering orange of lanterns and torches and night fires, like captured sunlight, now replaced by the cool hues of blue and purple and unnatural white, sometimes tempered by green and dull orange and neon pink - yet another part of her thrilled at the rainbow of colors to be found in the night life of the present.

 

Her mentor was giving her a pointed look - she knew this, despite her refusal to turn away from sunset fading into twilight - before sighing like an exasperated older sibling, convinced he knew better and only his way was the right way. "You encourage the clientele to request sloppy work. Traceable work."

 

"I'm touched," Meela teased, finally tearing her gaze away from the balcony's view to face her old friend. "Are you concerned for me?"

 

Lock-Nah met her gaze, his eyes that she had once considered cruel and constantly mocking, twinkling with mirth. "Hardly. I am more worried about my reputation. If my one and only pupil is so easily tracked down, others might think I too am easy to catch, and then they will come looking. Those of us who live to retire from this line of work have very attractive retirement funds. I would rather not deal with hungry jackals in my retirement."

 

Meela laughed softly and sipped from her glass, eyes moving back to the horizon as evening blue chased away the peaches and oranges and pinks. "I promise I will not give any greedy colleagues ideas." The wine glass made melodic clinks as her fingernails tapped at it, her other hand sliding over to take the manila envelope Lock-Nah had set upon the table. "Have you brought me somewhere new? I feel like broadening my horizons." She did not wait for him to answer before opening the envelope and tilting it so the contents slid out into her waiting fingers, wine forgotten for the time being. 

 

"I've brought you a fat check. If, however, you get there first." Lock-Nah chuckled darkly, leaning back in his chair. "I know you love a good competition."

 

A smirk slowly curved across her face as she looked through the papers, eyeing the contract, the target, the details, the location - the _generous_ payment for a job well done - and said competition. A relatively short list with a few names she recognized and a couple that she did not. All, she assumed, at the top of this game of death they played. Oh yes, Anck-su-namun loved a good competition.

 

* * *

 

Meela suspected that there was more to Lock-Nah bringing this assignment to her beyond her love of a challenge and competition. Her naturally competitive nature had, in both lifetimes so far, given her a clearer focus -  she became less likely to slip up or leave some kind of calling card MO, being too driven to be the first and the best to worry about the thrill of the kill or getting too flashy, too personal with it. While plenty of assassins used particular methods to make it clear it was one of theirs, even if it was something that only seasoned veterans could pick up on - in their field or among the ranks of those that looked into their cases - and still had long, successful careers, Lock-Nah believed it was too great of a risk.

 

He also found it too arrogant.

 

Perhaps this was a test. Meela thought she was long past her mentor's tests at this stage, but maybe he wanted to remind her she was still early along in her prime, at a a stage where she was still too green to afford such confidence. That she had only been working solo for six years, and if she wanted a long career a little humility went a long way. Part of her bristled when the thought first crossed her mind - Anck-su-namun despised the idea of anyone, especially a man, trying to bring her down a peg. But this was Lock-Nah, and she knew it was not a desire to humiliate, but to protect.

 

They were the closest either one had ever had to family.

 

While her ego might be a touch bruised, it was also nice to remember there was someone who cared about her. Who, despite his mockeries and threats over the years, the brutal lessons he put her through to make her prove herself - despite insisting it was only concern for his own reputation on the line now - gave a damn whether she lived or died. She had not had that in ages, and though some part of her hoped - prayed even, to new gods and to the old, though she had always cursed those unseen forces - that she was not the only one reborn to this time and that by some stroke of luck they would cross paths in this life, Lock-Nah might be the only one who ever would give a damn in this lifetime. 

 

Well, perhaps her snakes might care, if only because she was their source of food.

 

Maybe she would look into getting a cat after this assignment. A little more affection in her life could be nice.

 

Her housekeeper might miss her, but she would move on, tend to other houses, other employers with strange schedules and their own unique quirks to make life interesting.

 

On the streets below, sirens wailed in the distance. The sound rose and fell as a firetruck passed by the unfinished apartment complex where Meela waited for her target to arrive at his office. The manila envelope laid by her feet to the left, contents placed back inside after several careful and thorough reviews. To her right was a slim, long case, laying open - the contents of which were almost all put together in her hands. As the siren faded out, Meela leaned over to retrieve her scope and attach it to the rifle, then checked her watch - eight fifty-three. She pressed her middle finger to the ID lock on her phone, resting on the foam cushioning of the case, and took a peek at the hacked camera footage.

 

A slow, satisfied smile formed on her lips.

 

Target was in route from the car garage to the lobby of his office building.

 

The details of the contract were that the target had to be dealt with during a specific window of time on a specific date - one week from when the assignment was sent out. Meela had wasted no time and booked the next flight to the site of her quarry - a steadily growing city in the deep south of the United States, where modern liberalism and international cultures were mingling and slowly overtaking the conservative and fundamental values of the generations before - to get acquainted with the man she was about to kill. She knew he liked to arrive early enough that he would reach his office before he could be considered late, but as close to that line as possible. Just as she knew he liked to leave as early as possible without it looking like a bad enough habit to be reprimanded. She had clocked his past five treks from car garage to office and knew it never took more than seven minutes or less than four. 

 

At nine a.m. the window opened. Meela had every intention of taking the target out the moment he sat down in his chair - her view from the under construction apartment was perfect, a smooth, clear trajectory on a stifling hot, windless morning. There was nothing to obstruct her shot. The complex was past the skeletal stages, with barriers between rooms mostly finished, but several of the upper floors were still without the outer walls. At what would be considered an awkward angle by the initial crime scene responders, there would be plenty of time to make her escape, taking a roundabout way back to the cafe where her Uber driver was to pick her up in thirty minutes. She rose from her chair, one taken from the work crew that was busy with lower levels that day, and walked over to the edge of the apartment. She licked her lips, tasting a hint of salt on her sweat-dampened skin, and brought the rifle up into position. Glancing through her scope she aimed the gun towards where the elevator opened on the floor of the target's office just in time to see them closing as he made his way towards the room halfway across the building. Lowering down to one knee, she moved the rifle's aim to the empty office chair, ready to take the shot as soon as her quarry was in place.

 

And then - there, there it was. Something that did not belong. A soft - almost imperceptible - thud. Even describing it as such seemed to give it more volume than the sound actually had, but the construction crew were having a meeting on the bottom level, and she had already scouted to confirm there were no squatters hiding out within this work in progress. It came from above, perhaps the only reason she had been able to pick up on the noise.

 

Meela paused, listening close. 

 

Another soft sound, a little heavier this time - and she realized the first sound was most likely someone setting something down on the floor above, which meant the second, heavier noise could very well have been the sound of someone lowering to their knee. Much like she had done.

 

Surprise came first - a shock to her system as it sunk in that one of the competitors on the list was there, above her, possibly aware of her presence before she came to realize they were there. And then came the anger - white hot in her veins as the damage to her reputation and pride became clear, the emotion a burst of rage that simmered down into something colder, meaner, and she raised the rifle so the muzzle was aimed square at the location of the second sound. Her finger squeezed and then she rolled away as the bullet tore through the ceiling above, up through her competitor's flooring, dust raining down from the hole left.

 

A grunt followed after the bullet burst through the flooring, which was in turn followed by the sound of someone rolling away. The voice was deeper, masculine, and the footsteps sprinting overhead were heavy - that narrowed down the suspects for which other assassin had encroached on her territory.

 

Anck-su-namun almost went for another shot but the other was moving fast and she wanted to look them in the eye when she took them out. Dropping the rifle onto its open case, she pulled her Heckler & Koch USP from her shoulder holster, checking her ammo as she raced after the asshole above. She kicked the door to the stairwell open just as she heard the enemy rushing out on the floor above. She quickly made sure the lower stairs were clear and sprinted after, firing when she caught a glimpse of a man in a black suit climbing the set above to her left - but he forced her to duck when he fired down at her blind, just trying to get cover to put distance between them. Renewed anger bubbled up from the pit of her stomach, coming out in a low snarl as she ran after. 

 

They both had to move fast now - while her initial shot and their movements on the apartment floors were high enough up that they would not be noticed by the work crew below, the gunshots echoed loudly in the stairwell, and there was an ever increasing chance of being heard the more fire they exchanged, even with silencers.

 

It was only three sets of stairs until they reached the door to the roof of the building, and by the time her competition was out the door, she had nearly closed the gap between them - she had always been fast, had to be when killing on the streets, and that speed was her giving her the edge. As she reached the door she moved to the side and pushed it open, gun aimed out as she carefully but quickly moved to check if the asshole was waiting to fire on her or not. The moment she saw his back was to her as he rushed towards the edge she dashed out and raised her gun, finger ready to squeeze the trigger, but she paused.

 

"Look at me!" she shouted in English. Her rage was icy cold now, mean and hungry - Lock-Nah would admonish her not already taking the shot, putting herself in unnecessary danger just for the sake of her ego, but she wanted him to see her. Wanted him to know that while he might have gotten the drop on her, she was still going to come out the victor. She was ready for whatever move he might make, and no matter what her mentor might try to lecture her over, she had the power here.

 

The other assassin was tall, had perhaps a few inches over her - perhaps around the same height as Lock-Nah, but while he was hardly lanky, he had nothing on her mentor's broad, muscular frame. He was trim, the black suit fitting him well and cutting a sharp, smart image. Honestly, it was too predictable a look, and Meela inwardly berated herself over being taken by surprise by such a walking cliche of her profession. He stopped when she spoke, both hands slightly raised - a Smith & Wesson M&P22 in his right hand - and turned. Caucasian, with a golden tan, and thinning, salt and pepper hair, it was the dark, brown eyes that gave her pause. Something about his eyes seemed familiar. Body tense, ready to bolt, he made no move to take fire though, and there was a slight, teasing smirk on his lips.

 

"Meela Nais, in the flesh. A pleasure to finally meet you." He spoke fluent English, a not quite British accent giving his deep voice a melodic quality - South African, perhaps? Definitely not Australian. The smirk melted away into a somber look, something in his body language shifting, becoming less taut. As though he no longer had any interest in running, even if she made a move. Those brown eyes looked straight through her. "Kadeesh, mi pharos."

 

_Come with me, my princess._

 

Meela froze, all confidence in the moment draining rapidly from her body, as though her opponent had just shot her and left her bleeding out on that rooftop. She knew that language, though she hadn't spoken it in years during her waking hours, not out loud, almost afraid to form the words on her tongue and find that it was nothing but gibberish, wild fantasies brought on by some sin, something wrong in her, like her parents had believed. But the ancient tongue came flooding back to her, Anck-su-namun already forming a response when Meela regained feeling in her limbs and her finger squeezed the trigger in a near panic.

 

The bullet clipped him in the shoulder, almost at the base of his neck, and he flinched back, empty hand moving to clutch the wound. He raised his gun, firing around her and not even seeming to be trying to actually hit her, just give himself cover as he backed up towards the ledge.

 

Firing again even as she was forced to duck down behind a stack of construction equipment, Meela tried to regain her composure, forcing the part of her that was supposedly older, wiser, more experienced with life and all of its ugliness, the part that was an adult when Meela was still just a child in her mother's arms. The part that had always given her the courage and confidence to believe she could survive anything was now the part of herself she feared the most, all with just a few ancient words from someone else's mouth. She needed to find out what he knew - who the hell he even was - but her chances of getting answers there and then were shrinking.

 

"Another time, perhaps," the man shouted, and when she lifted up enough to gaze over the equipment she'd taken cover behind, she saw he was at the ledge now and grabbing a tether - one she realized had mostly been placed there by him earlier, not the complex's crew - and had unbuttoned his jacket to reveal he was wearing a harness underneath. "Wadaeaan!" And then he fastened the harness to the rope and pushed off the building's, disappearing down below the rooftop - by the time she reached the edge, he was almost out of range of her weapon and falling fast.

 

"Shit!"

 

* * *

 

Sirens were wailing in the distance and steadily raising in pitch as they closed in by the time Meela retrieved her things and exited the complex, slipping out the back while the construction workers were gathered outside at the front, a crowd of onlookers forming as the panicked crew's gossip attracted the attention of those passing by. She pulled out her phone to check on the status of her ride and cursed under her breath as she picked up the pace, slipping into the car garage of the apartment complex next door. Careful to avoid the cameras as she reached her parked car, she tucked her rifle case and other belongings safely into the hidden compartment within the trunk, only to then double back and slip out of the garage, making her way to the cafe where her driver would be in five minutes.

 

The Georgia heat and lack of a breeze was her enemy now, down on the ground, as she had worked up a fine sheen of sweat during the chase and gunfight. By the time she was stepping into the blissfully cool coffee shop, her suit - despite the deliciously breathable material - was sticking to her skin. Thankfully the all black ensemble hid any damp spots, and while it was uncomfortable and perhaps a touch too noticeable for her liking, should investigators suspect she might have made a stop here and come questioning the baristas, she was used to much hotter conditions and at least did not appear to be out or breath or uncomfortable. Experience had taught her that people would remember more animated behavior sooner than anything else. Sweat glistening on her skin would stand are far less than if she was catching her breath or shifting, trying to make herself more comfortable in sticky clothes.

 

Her ride had pulled up outside the cafe by the time she reached the counter, and once her order was placed she stepped outside to inform her driver she would be ready momentarily. The driver - a mid forties woman of Asian descent, possibly Japanese - told her not to worry, she would still be there when Meela had her order.

 

Meela got a read on the woman and made a mental note to give a large tip - perhaps, during the ride, imply she was striking out on her own after a bad relationship and request extra discretion on the driver's part if anyone came sniffing around. It was so hard to get away when your ex was a high ranking officer, after all. She had used similar tactics before, always with female drivers - her preference, as men tended to notice her looks and not forget her so easily, eager to brag about the looker they'd given a ride to - and always that had reacted with sympathy and words of encouragement and promises that their riders' business was their own, nobody else's. 

 

A stark contrast to the envy Anck-su-namun had dealt with in her time, the suspicion and whispers behind her back, the icy demeanor from Seti's eldest daughter, or the admonishments from the elderly handmaidens who tended to her before and after nights spent with the Pharaoh, chastising her for the disgust she barely hid in the privacy if her chambers before she realized she would not find allies there. Even her own mother had told her to be grateful, that she would be a queen. What a joke that had been - queen was a fancy word for slave, Anck-su-namun had come to believe. All that power, and none of it meant a thing.

 

Only one person had ever understood.

 

Meela thought back to the rooftop. To those words. To those brown eyes. That sense of familiarity she couldn't place. There was something nagging at the back of her mind, a theory that was forming but that she could not stomach acknowledging just yet. She rode in silence in the back of the sedan, sipping the warm chai latte and ignoring part of her that was curious - desperate even - to know who the other assassin had been, how he had known who she was, known that ancient tongue, _why_ he had said those words specifically. Meela wanted to know and yet, the thought of the answers being what she was thinking terrified her.

 

Suddenly all her dreams and nightmares - her memories, she had insisted to her parents time and time again - seemed all so disturbingly real. She thought she had always believed in them with an unbreakable certainty - and _yet_...

 

In her left pants pocket, her phone buzzed against her thigh. She pulled it out and saw a text from Lock-Nah - ' _what happened? safe?_ ' - and quickly pressed her middle finger to unlock the screen, quickly texting back a simple ' _safe, soon_ ' and returning the cell to her pocket. She ignored the next buzz and took another, long sip of her drink. What had happened? She wasn't sure where to begin - other than finding out who that assassin was. Fingers holding the chai tapping on the cup, she pulled her phone out again and unlocked the screen, not even reading Lock-Nah's reply as she texted, ' _I want everything you know about the others on this case - males only_.'

 

Her driver hummed quietly in the front, politely minding her own business.

 

The wailing of the sirens had faded out roughly a mile ago.

 

Meela's fingers continued to tap against the warm cardboard cup - _taptaptaptap_ , _taptaptaptap_ \- while her eyes watched, unfocused, as buildings passed by, pedestrians crowding down the sidewalks, other cars speed past or falling behind. Two more blocks and they would reach her destination, a local hotel that was nice, but on the more modest and affordable side of places to stay in the downtown area. Afterwards she would give a generous tip, thank her driving for letting her enjoy the quiet. Her eyes would moisten and go distant, and then she would fake a tired, weary smile. Explain that it was rough going right now, trying to avoid her ex-husband. With a trembling, soft voice she would beg the driver not to tell anyone - even police - where she was staying, that her ex was a high ranking officer and had used that to track her down before. She would tearfully thank her driver again and step into the hotel, cutting the waterworks as she smiled at the doorman. Once inside her room, she'd retrieve the SIM card from her cell, pack her things, destroy the phone, toss it in a public waste bin on her way out, and flag down a taxi that would take her back to the apartment complex where her car waited.

 

It was routine at this point, an act she could -normally - perform in her sleep. But she was unnerved after the encounter earlier, and perhaps some of her apprehension was genuine when she started up the act as the car pulled into a temporary parking slot at the front of her building. She genuinely was wondering if someone was following her, if the assassin had been tracking her this whole time. 

 

Would he be waiting for her in the hotel room? At the garage?

 

It rankled her, these thoughts that bordered on paranoia, but no one had ever gotten close to her before. Let alone got the jump on her. And no one had ever, _ever_ said or done anything to give outside credibility to the memories that haunted her sleep. She needed to get out of the States and back to her home, find out everything she could about the hit, about the others, about who that other hitman in the building was.

 

Sleep was put on the back burner until she did.

 

* * *

 

Jet lag was a force to be reckoned with by the time her taxi turned into the neighborhood of her main place of residence, a house in the outskirts outskirts of the east bank of Luxor. It was only the glimpses of the ruins of Waset as the taxi took her home from the airport that kept her awake - a reminder of what was most likely waiting for her when she finally succumbed. 

 

She was not ready for it. She was not ready for dreaming knowing it was reality. She had always thought she believed, but being faced with it, being forced to acknowledge all the awful things she had endured, the reality that she had lived before - died before - was suddenly all too much. She glanced down at the new cell she'd purchased at the airport - of course she would lose hers while traveling internationally, she'd laughed with the cashier, at least she wasn't stranded somewhere in a country whose language she couldn't speak a lick of - and brought up Lock-Nah in her contacts, fingers speedily tapping away - ' _New number, lost the old. Home._ ' - thumb pressing down on send by the time the taxi reached her house. Cell in hand, Meela stepped out of the car as the driver retrieved her bag from the trunk.

 

_Ding._

 

Meela's mouth twisted into a slight frown. She had forgotten to turn the cell to mute. She hated the chimes and dings and tunes meant to signal notifications on cell phones. She also was not expecting Lock-Nah to get back to her so quickly, and for a moment she wondered if something was wrong. Her thoughts easily drifted into thoughts of snags to calamities since the incident in the states only a day ago. 

 

' _Already here_.'

 

Wonderful. Meela had been looking forward to an hour or so to shower and nurse a glass of wine before he arrived - but she should have been expecting this. She had never had a contract go south before, and of course her mentor would be here already, waiting to demand answers of his own. She mentally braced herself for a lecture, a sharp remark already waiting on her tongue to shut any admonishments down quickly and move on to finding out what exactly was going on. She made herself smile warmly at the driver, paid in cash, and took her bag to the side entrance where Nehal was rushing out to retrieve it for her. She reminded herself not to take anything out on Nehal, because it was difficult enough to find a housekeeper as efficient and discreet as Nehal let alone one who not only did not mind the large population of snakes Meela kept but also made certain they were will fed and taken care of while their mother was away on business.

 

"Oh! Mistress Nais, so good to see you home again! Apep is beginning to shed and will be happy for his mother to see him through!" Nehal was a delightfully charming woman in her fifties who loved all animals and had a fondness for the history and old religion of their country. She took no shit, kept the house spotless, the snakes alive and well, and was everything Anck-su-namun had always wanted out of the elder handmaidens that had waited upon her during her life in the palace. "And Master Lock-Nah arrived shortly before you, he is waiting on the second floor balcony."

 

Meela smiled sweetly, barely managing to keep herself from baring teeth at the mention of her increasingly presumptuous mentor, and let Nehal take her suitcase. She wished her rifle had already arrived too, but unfortunately the package was not set to arrive until the next day. "Thank you, Nehal. Let him know I will see him in the snake room, and then take an early evening."

 

Nehal nodded and held the door open for Meela, following in after. "Of course, Mistress Nais."

 

Despite many attempts over the few years Nehal had been in Meela's employ, she had never taken up the offer to simply call her Meela. She said her mother had been a housekeeper before her, and had instilled a hard and dedicated work ethic and principals in her daughters, one that was hard to break even at the employer's request. It had bothered Anck-su-namun at first, but now she was quite used to it. Perhaps part of her even thrilled at it. The respect she had been afforded in another life with the affection and companionship she had been denied. 

 

But Meela could not think about that. Could not think about why Anck-su-namun had craved that companionship, that compassion so greatly. 

 

A glass of wine and the opened bottle were waiting for her on the table in the large room where her snakes were housed, and Meela smirked, going straight for the glass to take a long, savoring sip. Just a little something to take the edge off her nerves, something she normally did not need - she was not one to drink in excess, she drank more for the luxury of it, a status and strange comfort in the dark, red liquid. She did not like to let her body or mind be altered by drink or drugs, so it was one glass and then she cut herself off. But that night she knew she would need something to help quiet her mind and soothe the strange and unwelcome anxiety that had formed into a knot in her stomach, so she had called Nehal from a payphone in the airport in Istanbul, between connecting flights, to let her know she would be wanting a bottle from her personal collection open and ready for her.

 

The liquid was a deep, dark red, and strong, too - with an empty stomach, she could already feel the effects of the drink going straight to her bloodstream. She would need to be careful so as not to get intoxicated, especially too quickly.

 

"Nehal tells me one of your snakes is shedding. She says it can be quite the process. Perhaps it is a sign that you should take some time off."

 

Meela refilled her glass, already disregarding her earlier plans of moderation. She did not turn around yet, taking another long sip before she felt prepared to face him and those cold, harsh, disapproving eyes. Swallowing the wine down, she slowly turned, not quite towards him but instead heading over towards Apep's terrarium. She smiled down at the Egyptian cobra as he slithered out from his little den, sensing the vibrations of someone nearing. "Apep. My eldest." Despite the tension in the room, there was an unmistakable note of fondness in her tone as she spoke of the snake. "A beautiful Egyptian Cobra, though he himself is from Morocco, hence his all black coloring." Certain Apep was well enough, she moved so she was properly facing Lock-Nah, letting out a long sigh. "Do you have the information I requested?"

 

"Yes, and more." Lock-Nah walked over to the table, setting down a folder. "Georgia was a set up. I should have sniffed it out. Whatever happened, I too bare some of the blame. This was not solely your mistake."

 

His words took a moment to sink in, that same paralyzing fear that had taken hold of her on the roof when the other assassin spoke to her in the language of her dreams taking over her now, like one of her own poisons, freezing her to the spot. The revelation was a theory that had been nagging her, willfully unacknowledged in the back of her mind, and yet it still sent her reeling, as though she had never once considered the possibility, not even deep down where her worst memories hid. Numbly, she side stepped towards the table, grabbing a chair and, taking care to keep her balance as her limbs moved stiffly, settled down it it.

 

"Tell me everything."

 

She had to know. Even as the news that the hit itself had been a set up - which, it stood to reason, meant the meeting between her and the other assassin had been the goal or part of another, greater set up she had yet to discover - solidified fears that had flooded her since the man had spoken to her in Ancient Egyptian, she needed the answers. It was better than the not knowing, the mental limbo she felt trapped in, questioning herself more than she ever had as soon as evidence outside of her own mind came along to give credence to her beliefs of reincarnation, of a woman named Anck-su-namun and her lover who had been covered up by history, better than any of the other cover ups the Ancient Egyptians had committed throughout their years as a great civilization. 

 

Lock-Nah placed a black and white photograph down in front of her, and her gut clenched at the sight of the face glancing over his shoulder. "That is Vincent Siminou. South African. Been at this game roughly as long as I have, still at the top of it. And most likely the man behind the contract." Still standing by her, Meela felt the familiar sense of Lock-Nah staring at her, waiting for acknowledgement of the information given, but all she could do was stare at the face in the photo. Blurry and wearing sunglasses, but it was undeniably him. "Meela, I was able to get in touch with almost every other contractor on the list. You were the only one actually offered the list. I had some contacts see if they could trace where the hit came from, and it all leads back to him. Siminou offered a hefty price and a challenge, no doubt banking on the theory that even if you could say no to one, you couldn't resist both. He wanted you there. Just you."

 

And there it was. No sugar-coating it, Lock-Nah wanted her to understand the gravity of the situation. Another assassin wanted to lure her out for a meeting - and judging by the silenced Lock-Nah had lapsed into, she was certain he had no idea why.

 

Well, she couldn't very well tell him she suspected it was because this man knew her in a past life.

 

Lips dry, she dragged the tip of her tongue over them and then rubbed at her temples, letting out a long breath she had barely realized she was holding. "Have you ever met him?"

 

"No. Heard of him years ago, but our paths never crossed," he replied, the soft rustle of clothing giving way his movements towards the chair next to her. "You know me, Meela, I'm not interested in making small talk with the competition. There's always a chance that at some point they could become your enemy." The way his voice shifted with the last sentence managed to finally tear her gaze from the photograph, her eyes meeting his. "Did he try to take you out, Meela?" Lock-Nah finally asked, an unfamiliar gentleness to his voice - and despite any kindness meant by the gesture, any concern, it was a sucker punch to Meela's gut.

 

"Does he hurt you?" someone had asked her years ago, his voice soft and his dark eyes kind, worried, the first to look past her status as Pharaoh's favorite to see the way she tensed when Seti touched her, the coolness to the smiles she granted her master.

 

Perhaps it was the jet lag, the persistent headache she'd had for hours brought on by stress and lack of sleep, maybe the indulgence of wine on an empty stomach, too much and too fast, but Meela all but threw herself out of the chair and rushed over to one of the plant stands furnishing the room, dry-heaving into the dirt, her throat burning with wine-flavored bile but only a little came out after several gags. She sank down to her knees, shaking, her heaves turning into hysterical gasps, and she realized in the back of her mind that she was having a panic attack.

 

Within seconds Lock-Nah was at her side, one hand pulling back her hair while the other cupped her face and forced her to look at him. "Meela, focus. Breathe in through your nose. A panicked hand cannot aim. A panicked hand cannot aim." He whispered the mantra to her, breathing slowly with her after it each time, something he had taught her early on when he was still getting it through her head that despite her confidence and all she had been through, despite how well she did with her training, there was always the chance something would go wrong, and she would be fucked. He had taught her how to handle that, but she doubted he ever thought he would be using this to calm her down from a panic attack while within her own home. "A panicked hand cannot aim," he whispered, both hands now cupping her face, keeping her steady. "Say it back to me," he instructed as soon as her breathing had calmed and her body was not all but convulsing with hysteria and fear.

 

"A panicked hand cannot aim."

 

"There's my girl." Lock-Nah leaned forward and in an uncharacteristic display of affection, kissed her forehead. "Clean up and sleep, Meela. We can talk in the morning. I will be here."

 

Sleep. A loaded word, full of wonders and horrors to relive. Ones that would feel more real than ever. The thought of it nearly sent her into another panic, but as the small spike of adrenaline from her hysterics started to crash, leaving her more vulnerable to the drowsing effect of the wine and the lingering jet leg, she knew he was right. Sleep was both the first and last thing she needed. Reluctantly she nodded and assured Lock-Nah she was well enough to walk on her own, and at long last, retired to the master suite to do as he'd advised.

 

* * *

 

He smelled of Kapet and smoke, of shadows and the secrets of the underworld. He smelled of darkness, of comfort, where she could hide away from the harsh light of the sun god and the prying eyes of the court. He was warm beneath her, his arms solid but loose around her, always promising her freedom from him if she so chose it. The high priest of Osiris, he had found favor with Seti's ear several years ago, before Anck-su-namun had joined the palace court, and through strong shows of loyalty and only a desire for what benefited the god of the dead and his temples, had held onto that favor.

 

Though there were certainly more comely members in the court, there was a kindness and a sharpness to the high priest's eyes that had caught her attention. She had seen him by her master's side almost constantly when Seti was at court or being attended to by his advisers and priests and generals. The greater her favor with Seti, the more he demanded her at his side during those times - and the more time she spent around the men that vied for the pharaoh's favor and offerings and wealth. She noticed that Imhotep, however, often walked in silence by the pharaoh, unfazed by the men who would seek to displace him, and she knew. It was that silence, that refusal to show greed or petty resentment towards the others, that wordless show of loyalty that in turn kept Seti loyal to him and, by extension, his god.

 

It was amusing, at times, watching the men fawn over the pharaoh, showering him with praise and complementary platitudes. She often fought the temptation to offer a trade - perhaps if they could please Seti the way she did, they would find new favor with him that would put them over Imhotep. All the while she could map out battle plans for his armies and train his soldiers, be in the elements that she loved and craved.

 

When Imhotep did speak, he often only whispered into Seti's ear directly so as to keep his words between himself and the pharaoh. Sometimes he spoke just loud enough that she, too, could hear - and she thought, despite warning herself it was a risky thought, that perhaps he intended for her to be privy to his words, acknowledging her while the others spoke as if she was merely a decorating walking by her master's side. Often his words were jokes at the expense of the others, comments that brought an amused chuckle from the king, while at other times they were genuine advisement, suggesting who it was Seti should listen to most of his generals, or which adviser offered up the wisest plan. Every now and then he would pull back from Seti after speaking loud enough that she could also catch what he said, and their eyes would meet, briefly, a faint smile at the corners of his lips.

 

Anck-su-namun had often ducked her head down after that to hide the heat coloring her cheeks more than then the light of Ra.

 

It was not long after that, after she realized that Imhotep did in fact see her as a person and not just a gilded prize Seti liked to show off - and that that, in turn, affected her greatly in ways that were not only unwanted but dangerous - when Seti came to her, disguising a command as a request.

 

"I wish to have my highest of priests by my side when I visit my armies, and who better to ensure that he can also fight alongside his pharaoh, should the need arise, than my greatest of fighters?"

 

Anck-su-namun could do nothing but smile, a tight and uncomfortable expression straining the muscles of her face, and sweetly promise her king that she would ensure his highest of priests was also his deadliest of priests, able to protect his king from an early visit to the judgments of his god. She had somehow hidden the panic at the prospect of being under limited guard around the one person in the palace who had ever made her lower her defenses - and they had yet to even exchange words. But she had mastered the art of hiding her emotions from Seti since she was sixteen, and she had accepted the dangerous command, and when Imhotep came to her, garbed far more informally than she had ever seen him, she had acted indifferent, bored even. As though the situation was a mild annoyance, and she had better things to do than train the third most powerful man in all of Egypt, after only the pharaoh and his heir son.

 

Of course there were guards. Of course there was a handmaiden or two, to ensure the high priest never laid a hand on Anck-su-namun outside of the training and sparring, that even during their lessons his hands did not stray to forbidden places or linger too long. Of course Anck-su-namun kept up the act, forced herself to convince the one man who treated her like a person that she had only indifference for him.

 

And then one night, the night before Seti and his attendants and generals and favorite high priest left to visit Egypt's military forces, she had requested permission from her pharaoh to visit the temple of Osiris, to pray for protection for her king, so devoted to the god of the dead, that he would see only glory and return home safe. She had peppered her words with kisses and light touches and sweet looks that almost always worked in her favor, praying to the gods that she had never had faith in that they would protect her this once. That night had almost given her faith, because her efforts worked - Seti allowed her the request to enter the temple alone, her guard waiting outside for her, so that she may have privacy between her and the great god Osiris. Somehow he did not suspect his requirement that she instruct Imhotep how to fight would backfire - so certain of their loyalties.

 

She had walked to the temple with her guard and left them outside, a thrill rushing through her as it had been years since she had stepped outside of hers or Seti's chambers without someone watching her every move. She had ignored the other priests, covered in their thick layer of golden paint that unlike hers was meant to show they belonged to Osiris, not Seti. She strode past them to where the high priest would be, offering the prayers of the vigilant and faithful, sending them up on the smoke of the evening incense. And when she found him, hidden by columns and statues of his god, she had thrown all caution up with the smoke of the incense, to be carried to the gods so they could smell her blasphemy. She had cupped Imhotep's face with her hands - one of the few parts of her unpainted - and held him so that she could taste all the prayers held in his lips, on his tongue.

 

When his hands had moved to the cloth covering her hips, holding her without smearing the paint, and did not push away but kept her there close to him, his mouth moving carefully against her on - it was as though she had been numb all those years in the palace, as Seti's concubine, rising up in the ranks of his wives, and suddenly she could feel again. Warmth had curled in the pit of her belly, spread through her veins, setting her on fire in ways she had never known. While she could not say Seti had never managed to give her some pleasure, this was so much more. Something arousing and comforting all at once, gentle and full of the promise of more. 

 

A sharp intake of breath from behind had startled them, made them all but jump away from each other to find the wide eyes of one of the priests taking in the scene of something forbidden - treasonous - and ice cold panic had replaced the pleasant warmth. Fear then became malice, a desperate, angry urge to drive something sharp into those spying eyes threatening the one glimmer of happiness she had found in the dark of palace life besides her fighting. But the priest had then nodded to Imhotep and turned away.

 

"He will keep my secrets, my princess."

 

_Mi pharos._

 

That had been the start. Anck-su-namun had feared that his immediate departure, leaving with Seti and his generals to visit the military forces and their conquered lands, would tarnish the one moment they had shared, that Imhotep would return and act as though nothing had happened, play dumb if she questioned him. That fear of the consequences, or even simple loyalty to the living god among men would crush the weak flicker of hope ignited that night. But the first time she had convinced Seti to allow her another private evening of prayer at the temple - after hours in his chamber, doing all she could to make him happy, easily manipulated to such a small request - it was Imhotep who cupped her face and pressed his mouth to hers, strengthening that flicker to a flame.

 

They took all that they could afford to. Stolen kisses in the shadows of his temple, brief glances behind Seti's back - innocent things, almost chaste, full of a want for more. But her body was always marked as Seti's, so easily smeared and ruined and her indiscretions given away if she was not careful, and eyes were almost always watching her, save for her evening prayers. But the more they continued, the stronger their need for more.

 

With careful planning, soon he was visiting her chambers after her handmaidens had retired on the nights that she did not spend with Seti. Stealing much more than kisses, taking all that Seti took - to him, though, she freely gave herself, savoring the delights he aroused in her. When she let him in, gave him pleasure with her hands, mouth, body, she did so with no ulterior motives, no hope for a reprieve or some small taste of freedom. She had learned how to please men years ago, but she put those teaches to much better use on those forbidden moments.

 

It was a dangerous game they played though. The longer he lingered in her chambers, the greater the risk. But she cherished the nights like this one, resting against his body, the taste of him still on her tongue, the scents of the temple almost intoxicating when mixed with the scent of their sweat and pleasure. This was certainly execution if they were discovered - exile if they were lucky - but Anck-su-namun would not give it up for anything. It was one of the very few things she had chosen for herself - he was the one person she had chosen.

 

And still she could not see his face clearly, though now - Anck-su-namun blinked, confusion and then fear creeping in as she realized her lover was in black and white, like a blurry photograph. She screamed upon the alter, her body shaking as her Ka lingered in the hollowed out vessel, waiting, waiting.

 

Ammit snapped at her, hungry for her heart.

 

* * *

 

Meela had not woken up screaming in a long time. Swallowing them up even before wholly awake was a skill she had mastered just a year or two before her parents' deaths. It came in handy while living on the streets, and even more so when taken in by Lock-Nah, who she did not trust yet with her secrets. But it had been ages since she had dreamt of memories and experiences that would rouse her with a cry, and so she was out of practice, the primal shriek coming out before she could stop it. The sound died out in her throat, now sore from letting it out, and all the tension drained from her body. Limply, she fell back upon her bed, sheets uncomfortably damp with sweat.

 

It was mere seconds before Lock-Nah barged into the room, blade drawn. 

 

"I'm fine," Meela all but croaked out, wearily sitting back up and sliding around so that her feet touched the floor. She remained there a moment, aware of Lock-Nah studying her, and sighed deeply as the now distant nightmare left her body wracked with stiffness and discomfort from how tense she must have been in her sleep. "A nightmare, nothing more."

 

"In all the years of training you, not once did you awake screaming as though the life was being ripped out of you. But," Lock-Nah sighed, and Meela could hear the rustle of his clothes, the soft padding of his bare feet moving, as he turned from her and left the room. "You are welcome to your secrets."

 

As though the life was being ripped out of you.

 

She wanted to tell him it had been. That there had been countless mornings she woke with her body shaking from the pain of knowing what it was to die, to feel your spirit leave your body. She wanted to tell him that Vincent Siminou had looked at her and spoken a language that was dead, ancient history, and had said words that only she would understand - not just what they meant, but what they meant to her. To who she used to be. She bit down on her tongue though, swallowed those secrets back into herself. She had endured years of her parents thinking she was mad or cursed - and Lock-Nah himself believed in nothing but blood and death and money. Meela could not risk the man who had given her everything, who was a brother to her, thinking she was delusional.

 

Not when someone else was making it impossible to ignore the reality of who she had been.

 

* * *

 

Roughly twenty minutes after her rude awakening, Meela was checking on Apep and the others while Lock-Nah went over what other information he had - not that there was much left out the previous night. Or much information to be had at all. A mug of steaming coffee in her hands, she settled down once she had seen to her snakes, her fingers tap-tap-tap-tapping on the ceramic. 

 

He did not pry about her dreams. He did not ask her what had happened in Georgia, only inquired if Siminou had given any indication what he wanted out of that meeting - if he had tried to take her out.

 

With a tired shrug of her shoulders, Meela shook her head. "No. He acted as though he was there for the hit, same as me. We had a gunfight, I pursued him to the roof, and then..." 

 

_Mi pharos._

 

"He wants something from me, I just don't know what. I did clip him at least once though." 

 

Lock-Nah smirked. "Good. He deserved it." His breath came out in a long, heavy sigh. "I think I should stay for a while. There's always the chance that he followed you back and might try to get the drop on you again, without any pretense of being competition for a hit." 

 

Meela waited for some quip about this looking bad for him or that his reputation was on the line, but it did not come. The lack of it highlighted his concern, and the sincerity of the moment was disconcerting. Seeking solace in the strong, black liquid of her coffee, Meela sipped it down and focused on the almost painful burn of it in her mouth, down her through, into her stomach and spreading outward. She preferred chai, but this morning she needed something stronger. Something to burn away the desire to drown her sorrows in alcohol - a dangerous habit, one she wanted to avoid. Nor did she want a repeat of the night before, and her stomach felt too uneasy to eat anything yet.

 

"Perhaps we could both use the break," she finally said.

 

* * *

 

 

Nearly a week passed without any incident - Meela grew restless and antsy, while Lock-Nah dug deeper to try and find as much as he could on Vincent Siminou. Occasionally they sparred, and the familiarity of it was comforting, even though it brought its own set of memories that did not belong to Meela but another entity, taking up space inside her.

 

As she waited for any information that might mean something or some sign from Siminou himself, Meela found herself resenting the woman who she had once considered the reason why she was such a clever and capable survivor. She began to question everything - was Meela a killer? Or had this other woman and all her bitterness at the world corrupted an angry and scared child? Did she want to retain residence in Egypt, or was that Anck-su-namun, afraid to leave her country for too long? Were her favorite foods hers? What of her taste in music? The books she preferred? What was Meela and what was someone else, someone she had been or who had hijacked this body and shared it with Meela - she couldn't tell anymore. She had no idea who she was anymore.

 

Lock-Nah had noticed her unusual moodiness but made little comment. Perhaps he chalked it up to what had happened throwing her off, making it hard to return to her normal self. He offered her many distractions though, and she appreciated that he kept his worry and curiosity in check, never once prying into her thoughts. He had told her, years ago - during the first months of training - that she was welcome to her secrets so long as it did not put him or herself in danger. He had always respected that rule.

 

"We are killers, Meela. Of course we have skeletons in the closet we do not want to share even with other killers," he had said.

 

That might have been when she decided that she trusted him.

 

Six days after Meela's return home, though, Lock-Nah approached her as she tended to Apep. The expression on his face told her there was some change, something solid and not simply coming up with a lack of any known family or loved ones, a life on the down low, a straight-forward hitman who stuck to basics, got the job done, was efficient and never flashy - all useless information that left Anck-su-namun frustrated at the lack of headway, no leads at all as to where he might be, where she could find him. Before she could ask what he had found, Lock-Nah handed her his cell - the one used solely for business.

 

' _For Ms. Nais. 1886 Restaurant. Tomorrow night. 7:30. I will wait thirty minutes. If you do not come, you have my word I will not seek you out again_.'

 

 "I'm going." 

 

Lock-Nah scowled - one of the few expressions that hinted at his age, showing more lines and creases than he'd had when he approached her in a back alley in Cairo. "I hardly believe the promise of a hitman who went out of his way to fake a contract so he could confront you, but please tell me you mean you will be on a roof, ready to eliminate a threat when you say you're going."

 

She bristled at the idea of killing Siminou - or was that Anck-su-namun again? - and shook her head. "I need to know what he wants. I need answers. I can't explain everything, but he knows something about me that I don't fully understand, and I need that."

 

Now her mentor looked truly perplexed, something she rarely saw. She had seen him vexed, angry, impatient, frustrated, annoyed, enraged even - almost all at her, she was quite talented in bringing out his less flattering emotions - but rarely had she seen him so stumped, so at a loss as to what was going on, what she was thinking. "Meela - he knows you live in Egypt. He may very well know where exactly you live. He knows too much. He's a liability."

 

"Yes, he does know too much - and I need what he knows. That is the end of it. I'm going." Her tone of voice left no room for any more debate. She had made up her mind, and he knew it was pointless to try and dissuade her. He had struggled with that when she was under his tutelage, and as soon as she had struck out on her own, it had become clear he would never have that say again. She watched the frustration and exasperation and worry play out on his face, in his eyes, until finally he turned and stalked out of the room, cursing in his native Yoruba. 

 

Let him stew, let him think she was taking unnecessary risks, let him wonder just what kind of skeletons she had hidden in her closet. 

 

This was something she needed.

 

* * *

 

 

1886 Restaurant was a local place that specialized in French cuisine. Pricier than its clientele looked - it did not enforce a strict black tie dress code, but certainly charged like it was that level of class - it wasn't a place Meela went often. She rarely ate in public with Lock-Nah, and 1886 was not somewhere you went alone. 

 

She also had never eaten a French dish she had liked, but it made sense to meet there. The atmosphere was much more subdued and intimate than many other local restaurants - they could eat in public but still retain some privacy for their conversation.  They weren't meeting there for the food. It wasn't as though Meela had never smiled her way through a meal she hated.

 

Dressed in a black, lightly sequined, evening gown she saved for special occasions - for times when she wanted to garner attention, get a target to lower their defenses - the dress hugged her body tightly and offered a nice v-neck dip of cleavage. She wanted Siminou captivated, distracted, and to let down his guard, and this gown had never failed to deliver the results desired. Already she had the attention of the host, and she smiled sweetly at him as she approached, moving rhythmically so that the material of her dress seemed to slither over her body. 

 

"Bonjour," she greeted with a warm, friendly voice. "I am meeting someone here, but I believe I have arrived early. Is it possible to already be seated at the table under Pharos?" Rarely did people in their line of work use their real names for reservations, and while this was not regarding business, she knew not to bother with either of their given names. So she went with her gut.

 

The host checked the reservation book and then smiled, her intuition paying off. "Of course, your table just opened up. Please, follow me."

 

There was a touch of relief when he did not indicate her other party had arrived yet. Meela had time to prepare, though how much was unknown, and so she would have to move fast. As soon as the host slid a chair out for her and she was seated, she smiled at him again, sweeter than before. "Do you know if my other party has pre-ordered any wine?"

 

"No, madam, he has not."

 

"Excellent, excellent, then I would like to put in an order for your finest bottle." 

 

"Oui, madam! Your server shall bring it to your table shortly." The host grinned widely, delighted at the show of wealth, and quickly went to alert the server that would be attending them. From her - unfortunately limited - view of the lobby, there was no sign yet of Siminou, and she hoped he would arrive closer to the time arranged. She expected him to be early, certainly, but a full twenty minutes to a half hour early? Hopefully not.

 

Meela took a cursory glance around, an air of indifference to the motion, and searched for any sign of the other assassin - or anything out of place, that might indicate this was a set up, some kind of ambush, perhaps a hit on her. Most of the other customers were tourists, she could tell that from their attire to the languages and accents. As much as she detested the tourism that infested her country - predominantly Americans and the British, coming to gawk at their historical sights as though they didn't ruin and destroy and steal so much of her history - she felt a little more confident that whatever Siminou's plans were, he would not make any moves against her in such a public place, full of gossiping foreigners.

 

Moments after being seated, the server came to the table, introducing himself and producing a glass of ice water as well as the wine, served chilled. He was a handsome young man, with the slight stammer of someone who was still new to the job, perhaps had not had a table that so quickly gave such an indication of wealth - and therefore, pressure, to try to ensure a return guest, positive word of mouth to friends of similar status, and of course, a generous tip - and perhaps not one that had such a distracting dress on, judging by how his eyes kept starting to lower before he quickly refocused them on her face. He politely saw to her needs though, checking to see if she wanted the wine opened now, or when her companion arrived.

 

"Oh, now please. I may as well enjoy myself while I wait," she laughed softly, giving the young man a playful smile. She sent him on his way as soon as the wine was poured, taking a sip for herself before she opened up the small, black clutch she was carrying. Her gloved fingers felt around for a moment before removing a small vial. Casually surveying the restaurant again to make certain she did not have an audience, her fingers quickly removed the lid of the vial, and as she reached for her glass, one hand moved to empty the vial's contents into the other wine glass. Placing the empty vial back into the clutch, she sipped her wine and settled back into her seat.

 

There was just enough liquid to do the trick - and not enough that her nervous server would notice a few drops' worth of what appeared to be water pooled at the bottom of the empty glass when he came to pour for Siminou.

 

As she set her wine back down, letting her first few sips settle, giving her a gentle, fluttering warmth inside, she heard a familiar, deep timbre - one that, without seeing his face, she recognized not from a rooftop face off but from countless dreams of another life. Turning towards the sound, she saw the host leading Vincent Siminou over to their table, the server quickly following after to ensure her companion did not have to wait. Meela forced herself to smile in greeting as the men approached, and Siminou looked...delighted.

 

Openly delighted.

 

It immediately threw her off. 

 

"Wine, sir?" the server asked Siminou once he was settled in, and at the man's distracted nod, the server poured a glass for him. Never noticing the tiny bit of liquid pooled at the bottom.

 

Meela took a sip of hers, refusing to speak first. Her insides, briefly calmed by the bit of wine, fired up once more with nerves and questions and fears and confusion. She felt as though her stomach was a nest of vipers, slithering and coiling around, disturbed from their rest and angry, hungry, ready to strike. She forced herself to swallow down the wine and hoped it would settle them.

 

Wine poured and menus open, the server excused himself. Everything around them seemed to fade, the indiscernible chatter of the other customers muted background noise.

 

Siminou did not make a move for his wine, instead resting his elbows on the edge of the table, hands folding as he looked across at her, his excitement still visible. "I must be honest," he spoke softly, in Meela's native Arabic, "I was not sure what you would do, but, I am glad you came, though I know it is only for answers. First things first, though - I want to apologize for my deception and tricking you into the situation back in the states. I'm sure by now you and your mentor have discovered I was the one who sent out the contract - and despite what it said, only to you. I needed to know for certain though. If it really was you." His eyes remained on her throughout his speech, and this time there was no studying gaze, nothing invasive about the way he looked at her - instead, there was something more like adoration.

 

It was off-putting. So she ignored it, choosing instead to focus on the last thing he said - "And who is it you think I am?"

 

"Did you guess the name on the reservation correctly the first time?" he countered.

 

"Yes."

 

A twinkle to those dark eyes, mischievous and pleased. "Then I think you know."

 

_Mi Pharos._

"I am hardly a princess," Meela muttered, some of her frustration and her ever increasing internal conflict wearing at her, causing her to let it show. She winced, taking another sip of her drink. She hoped that if she continued to, he finally would drink from his.

 

"No - you are a very specific princess. Almost a queen. You remember it though, don't you?" He lowered his hands, his movements stilted in a way that gave her the impression he wanted to reach out for hers, but instead he settled back in his chair, hands folding over his lap. "You knew what I said to you. It was the first time anyone had ever spoken that language to you, at least in this life, wasn't it?" This line of questions was going too deep too fast, and she had no control over it - but he did not look smug or taunting, he looked desperate. 

 

Like he needed her to confirm his suspicions as much as she wanted him to tell her this was all some elaborate ruse.

 

She was not Anck-su-namun. She had not lived before. She had not died before - twice - or been raped countless times by a man who thought his title meant he could own her. She had not engaged in some stupid, forbidden affair with a high priest whose face she could not recall but she was certain she was looking at now. She was her own person, her body and mind and soul was hers - hers damn it - and she had not been abused, not been raped, not been used and had in turn used back to try and take anything and every little thing she could. She had not killed herself, plunged a dagger into her belly and bled out beside a dead king that she had helped butcher.

 

_My body is no longer his temple._

 

Those were not her words. They were beautiful and strong but still belonged to a victim - and Meela had never been a victim. She had suffered loss and hardship, but she took from life, she stole from others - their money, their belongings, their lives - she was a survivor. She was a warrior. A killer. Because she liked it, Meela, she was cursed with this wickedness, and she relished it, and it was all hers. Only hers. 

 

"I was afraid too," Siminou whispered. "For years. Wrestling with identity. With all the horrors that came to me in the night, in the dark. But with those horrors came something else. Someone else. Anck-su-namun," he all but breathed out, so soft, like a prayer in her ear as he settled behind her, arms holding her close as their bodies lay joined in her bed. "And she made all of it worth it. Everything I - everything he - went through, was worth it if we could only bring her back somehow. And then I heard of you - of Lock-Nah, one of the greatest in our field, and his young protege." He faltered then, gaze lowering as he breathed in deeply. There was a hesitancy, obvious in the way he kept his eyes lowered and licked his lips. He was making himself slow down, and Meela was glad of it, though she could not yet bring herself to speak up, her mind a jumbled mess of confusion that was playing catch up with all he had said so far. "Did you know," he resumed, eyes lifting back up to hers, "Your mentor began this line of work when he was seventeen? He came into it on his own, from what I learned. I started a few years after him, at a later stage in life. I always had a great respect for him. It can be a difficult career to succeed in without connections, but he did. And then I heard he was already looking at early retirement, had someone else groomed to take his place. At first I paid it no mind." 

 

He was offering up so much of the information she wanted so easily, she wondered if the drink was necessary at all. She had expected mind games, a run around, some flirting and taunting and perhaps a demand or two - favors for info. Tit for tat. But she had completely misjudged him - it seemed all he wanted was this chance to talk, without guns and high ledges to make things too interesting.

 

Anck-su-namun had worried she had misjudged him in the first, thinking much the opposite, hadn't she?

 

Meela almost finished her glass of wine but then stopped, not wanting the server to return and interrupt things, perhaps give Siminou time to realize he was already spilling everything, playing his cards too early. "So what changed?" she asked, her voice breathier than she had intended, her hands folded on the table before her and fingers so tightly clasped her knuckles were white. She needed to know.

 

"The snake venom." He smiled then, a soft laugh escaping him as his expression turned fond, wistful. "Anck-su-namun loved snakes. She often talked of how she prayed to Set and to Apep, to send an asp into Seti's chambers. Only during her first few years, before she had lost all faith in the gods. She found them mesmerizing. When I heard that you had a fondness for snake venom, particularly from Egyptian cobras, that piqued my interest. I started to look into you. Trying to find a glimpse of you on a mission perhaps. I refrained from trying to track down where you stayed. I know you live here in Luxor, but I have not attempted to get your address. I do not want to invade your privacy like that, Meela," he said, and hearing her name, not Anck-su-namun's, seemed to suck all the air from her lungs. 

 

She bit down on her tongue to stop herself from asking him to say it again.

 

"I only wanted to see you. See if it was you."

 

"So you arranged the hit in the States. Made certain I couldn't refuse the contract."

 

He smiled, eyes twinkling again, and nodded. "I knew the fat check wasn't a guarantee in and of itself. But a fat check and the chance to prove yourself over the other top professionals in our field? She was competitive too. Fiercely so." The admiration, the affection in his voice sent pangs through her. "If she could not be free, then she would be the best, the most dangerous. And now here you are - free, and still the best, the most dangerous." She started to argue - to point out how he had gotten the drop on her in Georgia - but he shook his head, already predicting her train of thought. "You nearly killed me with that first shot, and again when you clipped me on the roof. I was half convinced you might succeed. The risk was well worth it though."

 

Meela downed the last of her wine, feeling dazed, reeling as the truth seemed to just flow freely from Siminou's mouth, his eyes unabashedly admiring her and yet he was the first man in the building to look at her and not have to constantly lift his gaze. Her mind was a sandstorm of emotions and thoughts, so many different ones swirling together, mingling and conflicting. She felt sick. Dizzy. She wanted to grab the bottle of wine and just throw back, drink until she forgot everything, forgot about Meela Nais and Anck-su-namun, forgot about Imhotep and Vincent Siminou. Drink until she was blissfully numb, until she had blacked out and could rest for a little damn while.

 

He seemed to catch on, reaching over to take the glass from her, worry darkening his expression. "I'll stop. You have your answers, or enough to figure out the rest. You can walk out of here, and I promise you will never see me again unless you seek me out. I have what I wanted to know, and you have what you wanted."

 

"Maybe this isn't what I wanted," she whispered, realizing only after speaking that she was speaking the dead language, not the one she learned from her birth. "You had no right." She wanted to scream that in his face, but she refused to make a scene. "You had no right to force me out like this, just to sate your own curiosity."

 

"Would you have not done the same?" he asked - his tone was not mocking or accusatory, only the sincere, almost desperate sounding desire to know if she would have or not. "If you had learned something that tipped you off that I was Imhotep, would you have let it go?" Perhaps this was something he needed to know - even if she rejected him now, hated him for what he'd done, if he just knew if she would have sought him out like he had her, he could find peace in that.

 

She could not lie, even though she wanted to, oh, how she wanted to. "I would do the same." She stood then, fighting hard not to sway on her feet. She ignored the server as he came over and walked past - she needed air, she needed out, she needed space. "Don't drink the wine," were her parting words as she moved past Siminou, ignoring the server and the host and getting out of that building, desperate to put time and distance between her and everything that connected her to that past life. She walked briskly away from 1886 Restaurant, putting more and more space between her and Siminou - Imhotep - but Anck-su-namun remained there with her every step of the way.

 

In the distance she could see some of the ancient ruins, the places that she had once seen in all their glory - and she wanted to curse them, see them crumble into dust. 

 

"My body is no longer your temple," she hissed in the ancient Egyptian tongue, and she was not certain who it was she was talking to.

 

* * *

 

 

She did not drink when she arrived him - though she had contemplated the idea - nor did she acknowledge Lock-Nah when he asked what happened. Meela went straight to the third floor of her home, went into the room filled with all the artifacts and replicas of things that felt familiar to her, that reminded her of the previous life, of a time when she was almost royalty and almost powerful. She locked the door and lit the torches and oil lamps and burned incense and tried to find comfort in the things that used to comfort her - but had they ever comforted her? Or had they only comforted Anck-su-namun, cursed to live again in the body of another, of a woman identical to her but not her? Had she stolen all the time she could from Meela, hijacked Meela's likes and preferences to replace with her own?

 

What choices had been Meela's before tonight?

 

Anck-su-namun wanted to go back - wanted to run back to the man who had loved her, defied the gods for her, had assuredly died for her. She wanted to taste him again, touch him, make him touch her everywhere, all of her unpainted skin, her body her own to give - except it wasn't her body.

 

It was Meela's.

 

Meela was afraid. She thought this was what she had wanted - to remember everything, to find Imhotep, to have this second chance with him when they were both free to do whatever and be with whoever they pleased. Now though, it was all swirling, twisting around in her head, what was her and what was Anck-su-namun caught up and tangled together, and she realized that was how it always had been, but now she realized how terrifying it truly was. Meela could feel the paint on her skin, she remembered the paint between her legs - she sobbed, falling to her knees as she remembered how much worse it was when she didn't hurt afterwards, when Seti made her feel good, made her confused, made her think she wanted his touch despite her repulsion, her anger, her resentment. That wasn't her, though, that wasn't her - "That wasn't me!" She screamed, not caring if Lock-Nah heard her. "That never happened to me! Not to me!"

 

She crawled forward, towards the statues of Osiris and Apep and Bastet that she had collected, rising to her feet and shoving the idols off their display. She moved to the tapestries of ancient hieroglyphs, of renderings of Hathor and Isis and Anubis, of Ra and Horus. She tore them down, ripped them apart. She swiped her arms across the shelves, knocking trinkets - fake and genuine alike - to the floor and savoring the sound of each one clattering and splintering and shattering. She tore her gloves off, kicked off her shoes, walked barefoot over the broken pieces and breathed in deeply, as if in pleasure, at the feel of the jagged, pointy ruins digging into the soles of her feet, breaking the skin, causing her to leave trails of blood across the floor.

 

Lock-Nah was at the door to the chamber - the closet where all her skeletons hid - and threatened to break it down if she did not let him in, but Meela only shouted at him to leave her be, let her think - let her feel, damn it, let her be herself for a moment! And Lock-Nah could only question through the door, "What are you talking about?"

 

She held pieces of old papyrus over the flames of the torches, letting them burn up, scorching her fingertips at the end, and laughed - drunk from the wine on an empty stomach, perhaps even a little delirious, possibly hysterical. She wanted to destroy everything in this room, every single belonging she had ever wasted money on that reminded her of Anck-su-namun, of Seti's court, of Imhotep, of a post life in an ancient time, of the endless and terrible and vast darkness between that life and this one, all the horrors hiding there, something hungry and looming chasing after her and her heart.

 

Her legs gave out again, in front of the makeshift alter for Osiris, one she had never prayed at but made in Imhotep's memory. Anck-su-namun had hoped that giving the god of the dead a place of honor in her home would perhaps spur the god to some uncharacteristic moment of mercy and grant her a reunion - and Meela laughed more, sides and face hurting now, her lungs burning as she struggled to breath, at the realization that finally one of those fucking deities had listened.

 

The door burst open behind her, but Meela could not even acknowledge Lock-Nah as she collapsed forward onto her forearms, laughter becoming sobs becoming dry heaves. She beat her fists on the floor as she struggled to regain control over herself, embarrassed and humiliated to be like this again in front of Lock-Nah - in front of anyone - but the fit was almost liberating. Something inside her cracking, giving way to the rage and horror and grief of two lifetimes, two angry girls from the streets of Egypt, who only wanted power and wealth and security so they could taste freedom, so they could taste what was sweet in life without being punished. Her body convulsed violently as Lock-Nah picked her up, carrying her from her shrine to that old life and rushing her to her room. She did not bother to fight him - all the fight was out of her. She let go of the fight with herself, finally starting to breath again as he laid her on her bed.

 

She gasped, vision blurry, tears still leaking out of the corners of her eyes and ribs sore. Her throat was raw, hands and feet bruised and bloodied, and she knew she would hurt all over tomorrow from the violence of her breakdown. Meela let her friend tend to her, let him speak soothingly to her as she cleaned her up, and felt a sense of peace she had not know in forever. One of her hands weakly grabbed at his, clasping it. 

 

"Thank you, old friend," she whispered.

 

He squeezed her hand. "Rest, Meela. You need rest."

 

She did not argue with him, nor fight the fatigue coming over her. Meela closed her eyes and welcomed Anck-su-namun.

 

* * *

 

They spoke of the future rarely - as though afraid to speak of the possibilities was to boast of them as though they were certainties, and that could anger the gods. If they were not caught, then it was likely they would outlive Seti. As a high ranking concubine, Anck-su-namun would be afforded a comfortable life, and though their affair could never be exposed, there would not be prying eyes watching her every move like a hawk. They could live comfortably - happily - so long as they were still careful.

 

And yet Anck-su-namun always felt it was out of reach. That something would go wrong - that they were on borrowed time, and the gods who turned deaf ears to her prayers would still punish them for their selfishness and defiance of the living god on the throne. Some part of her had known they were never quite careful enough to get away with it until Seti died. Some part of her did not think she could wait that long, not with Seti in good health still, and many war campaigns settled for the time being.

 

"I could kill myself," she had whispered one night. "And you could steal away my body. You could resurrect me, and we could flee." It was fantasy, a wild and enticing fever dream, nothing more.

 

Imhotep had silenced her with a kiss, told her never to speak of that again - "I could not bear to see you lifeless, perform the funeral rites, watch them take your body apart. What if your heart was placed upon the scales of Ma'at before I could bring you back? What then?" He had kissed her again and held her tightly, his face pressed to her hair, and she savored the way he made her feel precious, priceless, unmatched. "We will find a way, my princess."

 

But Seti had forced their hand. It had all gone so wrong.

 

_Kadeesh, mi pharos Anck-su-namun._

 

Meela opened her eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

The Nile was on fire with the orange reflection of the setting sun and the bright bursts of coloring that always accompanied Ra on his descent. Azure blue chased after the pinks and peaches, Nut spreading out over the the east and west banks of Luxor. No matter how many times Meela had seen sunset on the river Nile, the sight never lost its luster. It had changed over the years, of course - there were more buildings now, more artificial light that made it harder to count the stars across Nut's body laying overhead. But it was still breathtaking.

 

Beside her on her bedroom balcony, her companion stroked the soft, hairless skin of the young cat they had taken in recently - something to care for together, besides her snakes. Something that served no use to their line of work, and was solely there to be loved. They felt they needed the practice - it had been too long since they lived for each other, with countless deaths between their last moments together and these new, uncertain ones.

 

She preferred Meela still, though at night she never faulted him for whispering her old name. She was making peace with that part of herself.

 

He let her choose which name she called him by, and it varied from day to day, mood to mood. She more often called him Vincent though. He never seemed to mind, only seemed happy to hear any of his names on her lips. He understood her preferences though - understood she wanted to embrace this new life, this second chance, and walk free of the burdens and traumas their old names carried.

 

"Nadiyyah seems to have made herself at home on your lap," Meela teased, glancing at the small Sphinx curled up into a ball on his thighs, the vibrations of her purrs loud enough to be heard over the sounds of city life in the distance.

 

"She knows she is safe now," he replied, looking over at Meela with a warm, affectionate grin. "She can relax."

 

A gentle smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "I know the feeling."

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so while I do love assassin aus, I don't actually engage in that specific subgenre too often, so my apologies if it's painfully inaccurate but this is escapist fantasy fanfic, lol. Also all my knowledge of the places and languages and histories/religions are based on some google/wiki browsing and the somewhat inaccurate portrayals in the actual movies. The restaurant mentioned is a real place but I only know it exists and is in Luxor, lol. Also, I freely admit that I kind of ripped myself off with the description of insides as snakes from another fic I wrote in the fdtd fandom. Hey, it works. XD Feedback is definitely welcome! :)


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